Joachim Murat

Joachim Murat (25 March 1767-13 October 1815) was a French marshal and King of Naples.

Biography
The son of an innkeper, Joachim Murat profited from the revolution to become a cavalry officer. He attached himself to Napoleon from 1795, serving in his early campaigns in Italy and Egypt. After becoming a Marshal in 1804, Murat performed well at Austerlitz, but his outstanding moment of glory was leading a mass charge of around 10,000 cavalry against the Russians at Eylau in February 1807. Napoleon then made him king of Naples, and the rest of his life was uncomfortably torn between the roles of monarch and marshal.

In 1815, Murat's focus was on saving his throne, but he lost to the Austrians at the battle of Tolentino in May and was executed by a Neapolitan firing squad five months later.